Reality with an imaginative blend

It was with Rajeev Kumar, the police chief of the Nicobar Islands, that I found myself cycling early the next morning. We were riding on a couple of newly acquired geared bicycles that he had referred to the day before. The roads were black-topped, perfectly flat and in excellent condition, thanks to the visit of the prime minister only a few months ago. The morning air was clean, crisp and still cool; the sky was clear, with wispy candyfloss clouds of innumerable shapes floating against a deep-blue background, the likes of which is seen only over islands. On both sides of the flat black road still shining under the sun because of the remnants of overnight moisture, stood dense canopies of coconut trees that seemed eager to encroach upon and reclaim the road on which we were riding. It was as if 'civilization' was making tentative initial steps amidst the eternal nature.

There was absolutely no one, at least that early in the morning and we, Rajeev and I, could cycle in a carefree fashion with a sense of absolute freedom that one can never get anywhere in mainland India. I was reminded how only a couple of months ago, I had suddenly got a godsend opportunity, just like this one at Car Nicobar, to cycle over the rural hinterlands of Uttar Pradesh, near the banks of the Chambal River, in the district of Agra, over the newly constructed and somewhat ambitiously named 'Cycle Highway'. It was beautiful then also, cycling over those flat winding concrete paths that cut through the green-yellow wheat and mustard fields that stretched for miles, riding towards a winter sunset over the ancient lands that had seen so many kings come and go, leaving barely their footprints over the sands of time. Yet, there were always villagers riding in the opposite direction, sometimes on motorcycles and occasionally on a tractor, and there were also the intermittent encroachment made by an extended courtyard or a domestic animal tethered on it. But on Car Nicobar that morning, cycling was absolute freedom and bliss.

One rode past a sprawling and apparently newly constructed stadium that stood to our left, over a stretch of flat land like a citadel standing guard. Only a single young girl, perhaps in her late teens, was running on the expensive and utterly underutilized synthetic running track. Occasionally, one rode past hamlets of Nicobarese people, the original inhabitants of these islands. Smoke was only beginning to come out of the chimneys that stuck out of the roofs of their huts like the periscope of a submarine. The grey haze of smoke lay suspended in thin air over the hamlets and made many shaped patterns against the green ever-present background formed by the leaves of the coconut trees. Many of the huts were of a uniform construct, made of pink-coloured wooden flats in the shape of log cabins raised on stilts and appeared totally artificial and inorganic in their setting. Entire hamlets appeared like temporary refugee habitations constructed by some agency of the United Nations (UN) or some foreign aid-giver NGO rather than a natural, organic tribal village where the original inhabitants had been living for centuries and even millennia.

That was indeed the case as Rajeev told me.

'All these villages that you see, made up of uniformly shaped huts of wooden slats, flat roofs and hoisted on steel stilts were constructed out of materials provided by UN relief agencies in the aftermath of the tsunami. Previously, all these villages were much closer to the seashore and the villagers used to earn at least a part of their income and sustenance from the sea. But since then, when their original habitations were totally destroyed, it was thought prudent to build the new habitations much away from the sea, almost at the centre of the island.'

For generations of inhabitants of the Andaman and Nicobar group of islands, and especially in the Nicobar Islands, which were much more directly and brutally struck by the tsunami, that dreadful night of December 2004 would remain an unforgettable nightmare. In the folk history of the people of these islands, the tsunami of 2004 would probably be equally important, if not a bigger milestone than India's independence, the invasion of the Japanese during the Second World War or the arrival of the British themselves some two centuries ago.

Even to a casual but curious traveller like me, with very superficial knowledge of these islands and especially of their original inhabitants and their culture and ways of thinking, the multiple effects of the tsunami stared right in my face again and again as it did on that morning on Car Nicobar, on that cycle ride with Rajeev.

The physical and geographical effects of the tsunami were visible enough. I had seen the brutally destroyed massive concrete structures on Ross Island just off Port Blair that had saved the capital city from sure destruction. I had also seen the various destroyed jetties and harbours all around these islands, some of them reconstructed, others abandoned. Here, on the island of Car Nicobar, I was looking at fully reconstructed villages made of materials sent by multilateral agencies and the government. I was to see whole islands that had simply submerged under the ocean and had disappeared with all their unfortunate inhabitants that night. But apart from the sheer physical destruction, the tsunami seems to have changed the centuries-old livelihoods, ways of living, cultures and beliefs and even the collective psychology of the Nicobarese people.

'You know, many of these Nicobarese people, not all of them, were seafaring people and had therefore lived close to the sea and had depended on the ocean's munificence in the form of fishing, etc. before the tsunami. Now, after the tsunami, which of course is like a fearful and indelible nightmare to them, they refuse to go out into the seas.'

We had crossed the village some time ago and were once again riding through dense, opaque greenery on both sides, but the artificial huts and the images of Nicobarese people going about their morning rituals had lingered on in our conversation.

'They have deliberately chosen to now live so far away from the sea. They have, almost all of them, restarted their lives from scratch although the government naturally had to help them and it continues to provide many of their requirements. New, unfamiliar patches of lands were allotted to the villages, far removed from the coast, almost at the very centre of the island. Of course, the survivors have had to look into other areas of work to earn their livelihoods and sustenance.' Rajeev kept the conversation going as he paddled. In case of the Nicobar Islands, where coconut trees and the produce from sea were almost the only resource, it meant that after the devastating tsunami of 2004, the Nicobarese people were even more dependent on the government than before.

We had cycled for almost an hour and had enjoyed it immensely too—the unspoilt nature and greenery, the flattopped smooth road, the clean and crisp air and the sense of freedom. I had been riding aimlessly, for the sheer and pure joy of riding a bicycle after so long—a joy that comes from getting your muscles to strain and exert after a long time, realizing that your old, rusty muscles were beginning to regain their long-forgotten memories and routines. But the sun had now climbed up to such a height in the sky that its rays had started to beat down on us. I was beginning to realize that cycling or any other outdoor activity would become uncomfortable during peak hours of the day. Luckily, at that very moment, the typical sea smell that is always a peculiar mish-mash of fishes and saltwater, came in along with the breeze and it was quite apparent that we were very close to the coast.

Sure enough, after a brief stretch of road that was not as cycle friendly as the ones we had been riding on since morning, I could see a white lighthouse at a distance. It looked old. It had a glass cubicle sitting on its top and some sort of a beam of light was incessantly moving in a semicircle, from left to right and then from right to left. It was a magnificent sight—that solitary, gentle lighthouse on the beach of the island of Car Nicobar, so far away from everything and everyone. It was the typical white and glass lighthouse with red streaks, standing against the backdrop of crashing ocean waves and small, white seagulls moving in circles overhead in the blue sky like some devoted, ecstatic dervishes of Istanbul. It was indeed a sight to behold.

All along, Rajeev had been cycling with an aim, the aim of showing me around—a rare visitor to his Car Nicobar Island from outside, a rare connection to his own homelands. Living on Car Nicobar Island, which in itself was better connected and more important than the other islands of the Nicobar group, can become very lonely and isolated for a person born and brought up in a large, populous and throbbing city like Delhi. Rajeev had anticipated and quite rightly so that the old, atmospheric lighthouse would interest me and had brought me there, therefore that morning.

Somehow, every time I look at a lighthouse, whether from far or near, or much more rarely from inside as that morning, the sense of isolation, solitude and silence as well as a feeling of permanent solidity comes upon me and never fails to move me. It was as if a sort of life-saving, contemplative sentinel was standing on the very tip of a tenuous arm of human civilization that extended onto the lap of untamed, eternal nature. As we started climbing the stairs that were twisted into a rapidly narrowing helix, I tried to imagine the kind of lives the officials and staff posted there lived. A couple of them were leading our way and as we climbed higher and higher, we chatted along.

(Excerpted with permission from Partha Sarthi Sen Sharma's Andamanush Nicobarese; published by Rupa Publications)